K-Mod: Far Beyond the Sword

[wolkenwand]

So.. version 1.27 is up. I'm particularly pleased with the new spacing at the bottom of the Info screen.. most people probably wouldn't even notice the difference, but for me it's pretty much the best change in this new version. I get a feeling of calmness every time I open that screen now...

nice update

Karadoc, it will be nice if age transition screen ( you have entered classical era, medieval, etc ) is centered on screen . Usually if screen resolution larger than 1024x768 the age transtition window is showed at left portion of screen.

 

[Highwayhoss]

Hey everyone, I've been busy doing my trucking job but I am on downtime for now. I was reading the thread and noticed the discussion about combat; after doing some thinking on this, plus some play experience, I wanted to throw a few ideas "at the wall" so to speak and get some feedback.

1. Units in cities and forts should not get the "fortified" bonus; Fortifying to me means building defensive structures and the like. The only exceptions should be for
   • cities without walls and less than 25% defense
   • cities that have had their defenses battered down.
2. City Attack: if a unit successfully destroys a unit in a city, shouldn't a city suffer some damage (after all if a unit was able to destroy a unit in the city, it had to have gotten partway into the city, right?) I suggest the following penalties per successful attack:
   • -1 Population (people killed or fleeing the city.)
   • Lose all Food, Hammers, Commerce and Culture production that turn.
   • If Population gets reduced to Zero? The City is destroyed.
3. Bombardament: In addition to bombarding cities, have Seige units be able to Bombard Fortified units as well, reducing their fortified defenses; this would make Seige units more useful.
4. Bombardament II: Maybe give Bombardament game mechanics similar to Air attacks? (Targeting units for example?)
5. One big problem has always been representing ranged attack units properly in combat (archers, riflemen etc). I suggest a new UnitInfo tag named "<iRangedStrike>"; this tag represents the fact that the unit has ranged weaponry that cannot fire into other tiles but still gives it the advantage over close combat units. This value would be identical to First Strkes, but unlike First Strikes, it would be a fixed value; also unlike FS, units cannot gain immunity to them. A unit would get off its ranged strikes first before using its Frist Strikes (which would behave as normal).
   Suggested values:
   • Archers, Musketmen, Rifleman etc: 1
   • Cannon: 2

The idea behind #1 and #2 is to encourage players to fight outside cities when possible; also to give a better balance between attack and defense.

 

[En_Dotter]

1. appealing

2. looks nice but is hard to give any motive to attack. If i want to take a city i want it as big as possible so i can compensate for the time/resources spent for the army. Having 6 defenders in city will half the city of size 12 and then u get a city of 3. It seems a bit lame.

3. appealing

4. Thats a major mechanic change and would mean a large impact on the game. While it is good in other mods this one tends to keep the "original" idea of balance.

5. Same as for 4. Archery units have 1st strike promotions to compensate for ranged mechanic.

 

[Archon_Wing]

1. That would give no incentive to defend those spots. Sure you can say they don't need to spend several turns fortifying but city defenses being so powerful is needed in civ 4, given the power of siege weapons.

2. Too severe. Conquering a city already does so damage to it that this would make conquering cities even worse. Try slower growth or lesser food. Damage to a city is already reflected in improvements being pillaged.

3. Siege weapons are already too good.

4. Same

5. Unfortunately, every incarnation of this I've seen in every game is overpowered. You'd have to make ranged units a lot weaker in direct combat for that to work.

 

[Charles555nc]

Often times, the best defensive strat, is to let the ai take your city (if its a low level border city with no culture) and then use your own city attack upgraded units to clean up. Or at least it was when I used aggressive ai and they sent their whole army at you at once.

But, Artillery type units are overpowered already. Your suggestions would make artillery even more valuable.


Im all for give and take,

for example,

give artillery units some of those abilities you mentitioned like targeting specific units, no fortify unit bonus except in certain conditions,

then take away 1 or 2 max targets for collateral damage



-And ranged units that are powerful already have a higher strength to reflect how much better they are than melee units. Pikemen vs muskets/rifles for example.

Edit: Who else is loving the new buttons? Shift click, control click, alt click, right click!

 

[Lenowill]

I am loving the new shift/ctrl stuff in the city build queue a LOT.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So I tested the sticky auto workers with forts with the new version, and unfortunately it still happens; automate does nothing with these guys. Check the 1010 save

Spoiler :

Another strange quirk (see 1725 save) is that the AI will change its religion when at war with you if you were of the same religion. I've seen this consistent behavior for the last few games and this rarely happens in the base game. Isabella and I were part of the dominant Buddhist lovefest until I backstabbed her and she switched into Confucianism for no good reason. She founded both but was buddhist for the entire game before. This could be exploited for some AP shenanigans.

 

[karadoc]

What of the latest changes should be excited about? You know better than anyone what changes will result in actual big changes in game.

Anyway I can find out how much Pacifism is costing me? Its upkeep is "0" but ofc that doesnt include increase in military support. I guess I could just "do the math" on my upkeep costs.

I don't really expect there to be any big changes in the game to be honest. Most of the things I do are about subtle improvements rather than sweeping changes. .. But if you like, you can keep an eye on what military techs the AI is researching so that you can give me feedback on whether or not it is better now. The AI should be better able to understand when there is overlap between the roles of different units. For example, it probably won't be very interested in grenadiers if they already have riflemen and cavalry. They might be slightly less interested in longbows; and more interested in macemen and rifles... Well that's the goal anyway; but I haven't done enough testing to be sure it is working correctly.

nice update

Karadoc, it will be nice if age transition screen ( you have entered classical era, medieval, etc ) is centered on screen . Usually if screen resolution larger than 1024x768 the age transtition window is showed at left portion of screen.

I'll look into it.

So I tested the sticky auto workers with forts with the new version, and unfortunately it still happens; automate does nothing with these guys. Check the 1010 save

I tested that save, and it seems to work correctly for me. ie. If I press 'automate' or 'automate trade routes' on that bunch of workers, they all run off to work on something. They don't just stand still. So... I'm not sure what you're seeing. Are you sure that you tested it with the new version? What particular worker settings do you have selected in the options screen. ("leave old improvement"? Anything else?)
Maybe I need to download the thing myself to double-check that I uploaded the right version...

Another strange quirk (see 1725 save) is that the AI will change its religion when at war with you if you were of the same religion. I've seen this consistent behavior for the last few games and this rarely happens in the base game. Isabella and I were part of the dominant Buddhist lovefest until I backstabbed her and she switched into Confucianism for no good reason. She founded both but was buddhist for the entire game before. This could be exploited for some AP shenanigans.

It's true that your declaration of war probably has an effect on Isabella's choice of religion (and in the original AI, it had no effect at all); but I don't think it is easily exploitable. One of the things the AI takes into account when choosing the best religion is how many of their friends have that religion as a state religion. They like to have the same religion has their friends; so, Isabella probably wanted to switch religions already, but stuck with Buddhism because she thought you were her friend... The reason she wanted to switch was just that Confucianism was probably a stronger religion - because it was founded later. -- Isabella is spiritual, so she won't hesitate to switch religions like most of the AIs do.

So, although the war probably is what triggered her to switch - she only really did it because she was thinking of switching anyway. Maybe the attitude effect is a little strong though.. I think I might change it to be more based on leader personality...

 

[Charles555nc]

I placed a warrior next to the enemy cap for 10 turns so far, and they wont use their settler or worker for that time. They have 2 archers, and I think it would be ok if they escorted their settler with one archer...around 3100bc...

Edit: A couple turns pass, and they have 4 archers now, but arent doing anything...

Edit2: Added second attachment, Ai just attacked with one archer and lost, and didnt follow up and kill the warrior.

 

[Highwayhoss]

Thx for the feedback; I do agree that some of those ideas seem to be excessive in hindsight.

Here's my revised suggestions:
-Have it where units in cities and forts get only the city's/fort's defensive bonus(plus any City Garrison bonuses). If a city has no walls with defense below 25% or the city's defenses get reduced below 25% then they can fortify.
-Seige: I agree on give and take. How about making Catapults and Trebuchets "defensive only" units (like scouts) in exchange for increased Bombard capabilities? These units could bombard other unit's fortified bonus and forts in addition to cities. Also have Seige units inflict collateral damage from Bombardament in exchange for reduced collateral damage.

 

[Grashopa]

Rep nerfed? WTH?

 

[Archon_Wing]

I tested that save, and it seems to work correctly for me. ie. If I press 'automate' or 'automate trade routes' on that bunch of workers, they all run off to work on something. They don't just stand still. So... I'm not sure what you're seeing. Are you sure that you tested it with the new version? What particular worker settings do you have selected in the options screen. ("leave old improvement"? Anything else?)
Maybe I need to download the thing myself to double-check that I uploaded the right version...

I just deleted the entire k-mod folder and installed the newest version 1.27 again. No difference. The workers remain on the fort if i press either auto button.

Spoiler setting :

It's true that your declaration of war probably has an effect on Isabella's choice of religion (and in the original AI, it had no effect at all); but I don't think it is easily exploitable. One of the things the AI takes into account when choosing the best religion is how many of their friends have that religion as a state religion. They like to have the same religion has their friends; so, Isabella probably wanted to switch religions already, but stuck with Buddhism because she thought you were her friend... The reason she wanted to switch was just that Confucianism was probably a stronger religion - because it was founded later. -- Isabella is spiritual, so she won't hesitate to switch religions like most of the AIs do.

So, although the war probably is what triggered her to switch - she only really did it because she was thinking of switching anyway. Maybe the attitude effect is a little strong though.. I think I might change it to be more based on leader personality...

It sure does if it's the AP religion. That knocked her out of being a candidate. If the game was closer she might have lost a lot of her leverage. Maybe the AP religion needs an extra weight. That being said, she seemed to do a poor job of spreading her first religion which is strange of her. I did bribe her to war really early but still.

 

[karadoc]

I still couldn't reproduce the worker problem.

I downloaded v1.27 from the download page. Downloaded Archon_Wing AD-1010.CivBeyondSwordSave. Replicated the exact settings from the screenshot.
Deleted my current K-Mod folder and replaced it with the one from the download. - Doubled clicked the save game to open it; then selected the group of workers standing on the fort and pressed automate.. and the workers immediate walk N, NE, and build a farm.
I tried again after deleting the K-Mod settings folder (Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\K-Mod\Settings), and I tried a few other things, but in no case did the workers stay on the fort.

I did discover that Rapid Unit Cycling overrules the No Unit Cycling option.. that could be considered to be a bug... and I also discovered that turning on the Numpad Help option sometimes crashes the game. But anyway, I wasn't able to reproduce the worker problem. I don't really know what else to try. I can't think of any reason why it would be different on your computer; and when I was looking at the code after fixing it the first place I was pretty confident that it wouldn't happen anymore (unless it was happening for a completely different reason). So the only thing I can think of is that you are still using the old version... but you said you deleted it and reinstalled the new version to be sure. So ... well ... what else is there? Does the ctrl+click and shift+click thing work in the version you have? That's one way to make sure it isn't still v1.26. ... Any other ideas?

 

[Archon_Wing]

It works now after I deleted it and replaced the file again. Maybe it was the wrong version; perhaps it's a good idea to list the ver info in about or something.

 

[Charles555nc]

Any way there could be an increased chance of stone/marble near philo civs (like within 50 squares of their cap). Sometimes there isnt any stone,marble, gold, or even copper near my cap, which makes philo, pretty bad.

 

[SithUK]

At the end of this turn I carelessly auto walk my settler next to a barbarian axeman unprotected. The barbarian doesn't take the settler.

 

[Crispy007]

and I also discovered that turning on the Numpad Help option sometimes crashes the game.

Well after I turned off number pad help, the mod works. So you fixed my problem without intending to. Bravo!

 

[karadoc]

Any way there could be an increased chance of stone/marble near philo civs (like within 50 squares of their cap). Sometimes there isnt any stone,marble, gold, or even copper near my cap, which makes philo, pretty bad.

I don't think I want to get into that kind of balance tweaking. It's a bit too underhanded for my liking. I don't reckon the philosophical trait is so dependant on special resources anyway. Certainly it isn't as dependant as some unique units are...

At the end of this turn I carelessly auto walk my settler next to a barbarian axeman unprotected. The barbarian doesn't take the settler.

Well, those barbarians don't really have a good eye for tactics. They make some poor decisions sometimes...

Spoiler :

Especially when there is a bug preventing them from recognising non-combat units as being valid targets. Thanks for pointing it out.

Well after I turned off number pad help, the mod works. So you fixed my problem without intending to. Bravo!

Hey, that's good news. (I'm sorry for breaking it in the first place. I've worked out what the problem was, and it was my fault, and it will be fixed in the next version.)

 

[Charles555nc]

Could you check this post, Karadoc:

about the middle of this page, it goes like....

"I placed a warrior next to the enemy cap for 10 turns so far, and they wont use their settler or worker for that time. They have 2 archers, and I think it would be ok if they escorted their settler with one archer...around 3100bc...

Edit: A couple turns pass, and they have 4 archers now, but arent doing anything...

Edit2: Added second attachment, Ai just attacked with one archer and lost, and didnt follow up and kill the warrior."

 

[karadoc]

I did see that post.

Although it's pretty clear that the AI made the wrong decisions in those turns; it is actually pretty difficult to come up with a system which always makes the right decision. It's a complex situation. On the one hand, the AI cannot get good odds against the warrior; and the warrior is cheaper than the archers.. so it's not good value to attack it. But on the other hand, the warrior is preventing AI units from moving freely in their own land - so they should get rid of it. Even still though, the AI needs to be careful that it doesn't allow enemies to lure the best defenders out of the city before a launching an assault on the city. It's not always clear if the city is in imminent danger. Those archers in the city are quite powerful defenders - it may turn out to be a big mistakes for the AI to spend two of them to just take out a single warrior outside of the city.

Anyway, this kind of AI is always subject to fine-tuning. But I don't think there are any easy solutions to problems like this.


[edit]
I forgot to mention in my previous post, you can see how much pacifism is costing you by opening the economics advisor screen and pointing the the military unit cost thing.